The Grand Finale
by His Majesty the Emperor
Summary: Have you ever wondered what happened to Tim Drake in the three weeks he was held captive by the Joker? Are you brave enough to find out? In this final showdown, neither can live while the other survives. What will the combatants be willing to do to break their opponents? When it comes to the Joker, absolutely anything goes.
1. The Beginning Of The End

**This will be a short story of the events that take place during the flashback sequences from the animated movie Batman Beyond Return of the Joker. I do not own Batman or any of the characters portrayed here in. They are all the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers by extension. I am not making any money off of this story. Please Enjoy.**

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Tonight has been a real bust. This is the fourth night in a row that Batsy hasn't shown up to play. I had everything planned out so nicely as well. I threatened to blow up a hospital if I wasn't paid a ransom of twenty million dollars. I never really cared for the money, but a man of my comedic genius could never make his brilliance known to the people unless he had a little start up cash to finance his projects.

But that was irrelevant. What mattered for me though was that I was sure, _sure_, that something like that would attract Batman's attention. After all, it was the type of thing that had always gotten his attention in the past. Thousands of innocent people's lives in the balance, explosives, and of course, yours truly presiding over what was sure to be a showstopper.

But he didn't show up. I couldn't even get the first boy blunder to attend my little show. Instead I was confronted with Batgirl and the second bird brain. My heart just wasn't in it after that. I put up a little fight just to save face, but the gag had been clearly spoiled. It was meant for Batman, but he couldn't be bothered to show up. It turns out he was stuck in South America with his buddies in the Justice League. Something about an Aztec curse or something, who cares?

The point is that it seems Batman has moved on. Back in the day when there were fewer superpowered guys in spandex and when the universe wasn't being threatened by alien warlords every other week Batman and I had a friendship that was simple and easy to follow. I'd bust out of Arkham, come up with a new plan to send Gotham down in flames, kill a few pedestrians, and maybe stop for some Ice Cream on the way there.

And then Batman and I would get into a fight. It was a wonderful game of cat and mouse, much like two best friends playing a game of tag. There were a few rules of course. Batman refused to kill anyone and I tried to kill him and as many people as I could while trying to get him to break his rule. He always seemed to win though, and I'd get carted off to jail. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It was loads of fun though, a grand struggle between the ideologies of order and chaos. It would have been nice to win once in a while, but the thrill of the chase was at times reward enough. Batman was a challenge. I've always had a great ability to inspire laughter in my fellow man, but Batman always resisted. I threw every joke in my arsenal at him. I used every form of comedy I knew, from standup to more slapstick routines. I even tried observational humor a few times, and yet I never heard a single chuckle out of him.

I could never put a smile on his face, not even a smirk. It seems that I am the only one who truly appreciated our friendship. It was easier when we were both starting out. When I first decided to bring a smile to the faces of the people of Gotham I was the first of a new brand. They called me a super-criminal, a new breed of creature come to plague our fair city. Those were the early days, before the men with gimmicks and masks came along in full force. In those days the mobsters ran Gotham City. Rupert Thorne, Sal Valestra, Carmine Falcone, those were the big name fella's who ran the rackets. Such small, pitiful men, wearing their suits and fedoras and plotting in smoke filled back rooms to carve up the city a little finer between them. They had no sense of theatricality, no sense of art or joy when it came to their work. They were talentless hacks the lot of them. They had no style, no pizazz. I knew even then that Gotham deserved a higher caliber of criminal.

The talking heads on TV claim that the rise of the "masked criminal" as they so blandly labeled folks like me was a psychological form of escalation. The "good guys" and the "bad guys" in Gotham had, up until the mid-80's been locked in stalemate between the cops and the robbers, with the legal system caught somewhere in between.

And then _HE _came along. On to the stage walked our friendly neighborhood rodent. With practiced ease (or so it seemed at the time) Batman systematically dismantled the stranglehold that the mob had held on Gotham for well over a century.

But nature it seems abhors a vacuum. As more and more "regular" crooks were put behind bars Gotham saw the freaks come out to play. Some argued that Batman's vigilantism had caused our emergence, but the fact of the matter is that we would have likely showed up to plague Gotham one way or another. We probably wouldn't have been running around in colored undies and codenames, but we would have shown up eventually, just as crazy and just as willing to leave our mark.

Gotham became center stage to the show of a lifetime, the never-ending struggle between the Batman, his allies, and the group of misfits that went on to become known as the Rogues Gallery.

Of all of the so called villains in the world none were quite as prestigious or revered as the Gotham Rogues. We were the royalty of the criminal world, respected and feared by all across the underworld. We've never had much competition. After all, what other super-criminal group could stand against us?

Stupid-Man's enemies had no sense of grandeur. Lex Luthor? Braniac? Darkseid? Please. A bunch of melodramatic drama queesns so obsessed with such trivial things like power that they oftentimes forgot to enjoy themselves.

The Flash's enemies have no appreciation for the art of terror.

Green Lantern's enemies have no considerations for the more important things in life.

Villains the world over are so obsessed with obtaining such worthless things. Take over the world? What would they do with it? Steal all of the world's wealth? Again, what would they do with it?

That is what set the Gotham Rogues above all the rest. We never looked for something as petty as money or power. We put on our costumes and did what we did because crime amused us. Any money we came across in the process was merely a means to fuel our little hobbies of murder and mayhem. We didn't commit crimes because we desired something greater. We murdered and stole because we could.

But the dawn of the 21st Century paved the way for a different world. The stakes grew higher and suddenly, one clown threatening to destroy half of Gotham didn't seem as big a deal anymore. I mean how could it when the entire world was being invaded by aliens every other year?

Batman seemed to move on to greener pastures. He had new friends to play with now. He spent more and more time in that little club house in space with his buddies in the Justice League, having a grand time being a hero, leaving his old Gotham pals behind in the dust. Oh sure, he always came back, and we still had our little romps, but never again would we have the Bat's undivided attention. The world had gotten stranger and tougher, and in contrast to the new foes he fought we costumed crooks didn't seem quite as impressive as we used to be.

The gag got old. People got used to us. We started losing our appeal. The crowds got tougher.

The act got stale. The last few years I've been using the same old jokes, the same puns.

I've fallen into a rut.

We've had our share of laughs, but none of us are getting any younger. I tried to avoid giving it much thought, but sooner or later it will come to an end. It's getting harder and harder these days, the superheroes and the cops are to organized now for guys like me to have their fun. It's getting even harder to break out of jail these days as well. A few of us have already fallen into permanent retirement. Wesker is reformed, the Penguin is behind bars, this time for good, and it seems that old Harvey Dent's split personality has only gotten worse. I remember the last time I broke out. He was just sitting in his cell, muttering to himself. To think he was one of the best of us once. I had a good laugh at his expense at the time, but my laughter seemed to fall on deaf ears.

I don't think he even knew who I was by that point.

What is the point of a joke if the person being made fun of can't even understand that he is being laughed at?

Is that how we'll all end up eventually? Each of us locked in a padded cell for the rest of our days, resigned to wither away without one last hurrah?

NO.

That may be Two Face's punchline, but I'm not going out that way. The Clown Prince of Crime leaves on his own terms! How dare Batman leave us for his new buddies? Has he forgotten where he comes from? He's gotten too big for his cowl, that is it!

It's about time I shook things up a bit. The game has to change. A change in pace will make things very interesting. But this time there is going to be a very definitive end. One of us has to go, that is how the game is played. The show has been fun, but even the longest of operas must come to an end inevitably.

But the climax has to be huge. It has to be emotional. It has to be…_personal_.

Yes, I see it all falling into place. The end of Batman has to be wracked with misery and defeat. If I'm going to kill the Bat permanently, I'll have to break him spiritually first. And the best way to break a man's heart is to go after his children. He's always had a few nipping at his heels. It should be easy enough to get my hands on one. And then the grand finale will finally be able to take place.

I'm sure that it is going to be an absolute killer.


	2. Arkham

**Remember my friends, you can't spell Mark Hamill without Arkham.**

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The night is generous in Gotham.

It is a time and a place wherein the monsters come out to play. It is a time where no one is truly safe. It is a time when the inner darkness of the souls of men are given a cover to express and commit their wickedness towards their fellow man. All are held equal in this jungle of concrete and brick. Guilty, innocent, rich, poor, it doesn't matter.

At night in Gotham all people are potential victims just waiting for the shadows to come and get them.

The blood red sky over Gotham looks down upon these ants who struggle and fight and steal. The more superstitious amongst Gotham's criminal population often hold to the rumor that the crimson sky above them is the result of all the blood that has been spilt in Gotham City, the crime capital of this world. They say that even now the blood of Gotham's victims evaporates into the air and hangs over the city like a crimson cloud. Those with a little more intelligence to their credit simply attribute it to light pollution, but the first theory somehow has more staying power.

It is in this wretched cesspool that a trap is laid, a trap that shall commence the beginning of the most memorable show in all of Gotham's history. Tonight Gotham shall offer up as a sacrifice one of her protectors to one of its greatest demons, and in a city of millions, few will notice his disappearance.

The night is generous in Gotham to those who wait, and in a dark corner alley hidden in the shadows a man waits and watches.

A piercing shriek echoes through the night.

"Help! Help! Somebody please, help!"

A woman is in danger, her back to the wall in an alleyway, cornered by two nameless thugs. Their precise intentions are unknown, all that anyone needs to know is that they mean her harm. It is a situation that no good hero could resist.

That is precisely what he is counting on.

Sure enough, out of the night a flash of red and black appears. With a sense of acrobatic flair a young man appears, no older than his mid to late teens, and smashes the two crooks heads together, rendering them unconscious. He lands with his back to the woman and surveys the two felons.

"That evens things up a little." He says.

"Not really Bird Boy." The so-called victim said while pulling a large hammer from her voluminous trenchcoat. She moves faster than the young Robin can react, slamming the vigilante in the back with all of her strength. The force of her swing causes the hat and wig she was wearing to fall off, revealing a black and red jester bell hat and domino mask, the hallmark headgear of one Harley Quinn. From a nearby doorway a purple suited man appears and observes his girlfriend's handiwork.

Robin lay unconscious in the alleyway as the two clowns looked at their newly acquired hostage.

"He, he, he, he" the Joker darkly chuckled, "A bird in the hand."

Quinn moved to kneel by Robin's unconscious form as she reached out to pull off his mask. In a blink and you miss it moment the Joker leapt from the doorway, over the guardrail separating the door from the alley and slapped his henchwoman's hand away.

"Ow, I just wanted to see who he was sweety." Quinn said with a hurt expression on her face as she held the aforementioned hand.

"No one is who you think they are my dear." The Joker responded. "Besides, in time he'll tell us who he is."

"I always thought that Batman and his kids would rather die than tell anyone who they were." Harley responded.

"You would indeed think that Harley my dear." The Joker returned. "But I have a little game in mind, a game that should be loads of fun for you and me."

"What kind of game Puddin?" She asked as the Joker turned to leave. The Joker looked over his shoulder and answered, "We are going to add Robin to our little family Harley, now pick him up and let's get going."

Robin was given a sedative to ensure that he would not regain consciousness too soon and was unceremoniously thrown into the trunk of their car. With a screech of burning rubber the two clowns and their hostage sped away into the crimson hued night, leaving two unknowing and unconscious crooks behind, the only whisper of what had occurred

"Where are we headed Puddin?" Harley asked. "…the hideout in the factory district?"

"Certainly not. For this little game I have in mind we will need to be left absolutely alone until I am ready. Batman has figured out where most of our hideouts are by now. No, we need a new locale, somewhere where no one will think to look." For a moment they drove in silence, the gears of the Joker's mind spinning. In the supervillain business location is everything. Where is the one place that Batman would never think to look for them? And then it came to him.

Turning sharply off of the exit, the Joker left the City limits behind and drove into the hills. In the dark of the night a dilapidated and looming form stood upon a sharp and jagged hill in the distance, a blight upon the land.

Arkham Asylum, or rather, what was left of it.

The Asylum had been closed down the year before and had been partially demolished. The construction team responsible for the demolition had evidently refused to continue with the operation, something to do with the local union and contract disagreements or some other nonsense.

For years Arkham had held quite the reputation. Many a shopkeeper in Gotham, whenever they would go out to lunch would put up signs in there shop windows that read, "Been committed to Arkham Asylum, be back around two."

The revolving door nature of Arkham was the butt of many a joke and the subject of many an outraged conversation when one of the Asylum's regular inmates became particularly violent. The law was relatively clear on the matter. The vast majority of Gotham's super-criminal population had been deemed legally insane, and therefore was not responsible for the crimes they had committed in the eyes of the courts. Ergo they could not be thrown in jail. And so the freaks (as they were labeled by the civilian populace) were shunted into Arkham.

The problem with this arrangement was relatively straight forward and easily revealed early on; Arkham was a mental hospital, not a prison. Despite its rather Gothic architecture and dark lighting Arkham was never intended to hold high caliber criminals who were dedicated to escape. The meager security forces that patrolled Arkham's halls were not trained to handle criminals of such resource, and the budget was strained so thin that the Asylum's Board of Directors could not afford to train the guards to handle the super-criminals they interacted with on a daily basis.

One could successfully argue that Batman's Rogues Gallery was composed of the mentally ill and other hardcore psychotics, but the one constant that separated the costumed crooks from the more "normal" inmates of Arkham was the simple fact that each and every one of the Rogues possessed a method to their madness. Insanity did not get in their way when it came to plotting an escape. Rather, madness complimented and in many a case fueled the thought process, resulting in many an escape attempt that was so insanely dangerous that no sane man would have ever been able to devise or attempt it.

The criminal justice system had been rocked with protest. The Joker alone had murdered at least a thousand people in his "career" and the body count for the other Rogues, while not nearly as impressive, was none the less staggering. But the bureaucracy had refused to budge, claiming that the law was the law and that the Rogues could not be sent to a maximum security jail due to their questionable mental health. When the irate public had turned from the justice system to Arkham itself, the staff gave the same excuse that they always had, they didn't have the budget to beef up security or train the guards better.

And so the quagmire that was Arkham Asylum continued. Despite generous and regular donations from Wayne Enterprises into the Arkham coffers the money almost always found itself mysteriously disappearing at annual budget meetings. Whispers of general corruption and embezzlement echoed through City Hall, but the Arkham staff always managed to find a loophole that let them out of trouble.

But the public refused to keep quiet. Mass demonstrations practically became a daily event. By this point it had been nearly two decades since the first of the Rogues started to walk the streets, and since then the poorer parts of Gotham had become a constant warzone reminiscent of a third world country wracked by Civil War. The collective nerve of the people was frayed to the breaking point. They demanded action, and they wanted it now. As the death toll continued to climb drastic measures were finally taken. A newer, more secure facility was finally built and the inmate population was sent there.

While breakouts did still occur at the new facility they were far fewer than they had been at the old Arkham Asylum. Arkham was subsequently abandoned. The vast majority of people tried to avoid it, some believing the building to be cursed.

It was to Arkham that Joker had returned. Arkham; the closest thing to a home that he had ever had, his little get away where he could rest and relax in between performances. The Joker allowed himself a laugh as a funny thought came to his mind. For most of his life he had been trying to bust out of this place, and now here he was with a pair of bolt cutters opening the lock to the gate, tring to break _in_.

The Joker returned to the car and drove through the gates and up the hill, parking the car just outside of the entrance.

"Home sweet home, isn't it Harley." The Joker exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear as if he were a potential buyer surveying a nice house in the suburbs.

Harley looked about at the collapsed roof, the shattered panes of glass, the rusting bars and the pieces of debris that lay about the property.

"It's a bit of a fixer upper, but I'm sure we can make something of it." She said.

"There's the spirit. Let's set up shop." The Joker responded. Harley opened the trunk and lifted Robin out, carrying him into the Asylum. The Joker stood back for a moment, looking over the crumbling building before nodding in approval. In a way the crumbling structure of Arkham was symbolic of the state of Gotham's super-criminal population, crumbling and badly damaged. The Joker was a forward thinking man, enough to realize that the best years of villainy were behind them. All of the greatest jokes had been told, the best plans had all been foiled. So many had given up all together, locked away, never to have their fun ever again.

They were getting old. A new generation would surely rise to take his place, but his generation, the greatest generation of criminals ever to grace Gotham and the world was slowly but steadily dying out. Thanks to the concerted efforts of caped crusaders like Batman villains no longer had a chance. They were being run out of business. Unless they struck back hard with a vengeance.

The Joker was never one to be slighted. He was a determined and relentless man by nature. He knew deep down that he was right and Batman was wrong.

He knew that all it took was just one bad day to put a man in a position that would reduce the sanest person alive to lunacy.

Today was Robin's bad day. Batman's bad day would come soon. Joker could feel it in his bones. It would take time. The boy needed molding (what kid doesn't though?) but the Joker was more than up to the task.

As the Joker walked up the steps and through the door to the ruined reception lobby he remembered something. He remembered the many times that he had been escorted back to the Asylum by Batman or the guards. As he would be dragged to his cell he could always hear the more _disturbed_ residents of Arkham screaming as their minds plagued them with visions and hallucinations. But now the halls of Arkham were eerily silent. It wasn't natural for the Asylum to be so quiet.

The Joker would soon rectify this.


	3. A Rude Awakening

**Those of you familiar with Batman Beyond Return of the Joker know what is coming up next. Those of you who do not, well, as of now this and the following chapters will carry a special warning. Scenes of physical and psychological torture will take place in the future. Viewer discretion is advised.**

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The world was a kaleidoscope of shifting and blurred colors. Pain erupted from his lower back as he regained consciousness. Where was he? How did he get there? Why couldn't he move?

"Wakey wakey sonny boy, you'll be late for school." A sharp sting lit up the electrical impulses in his brain, forcing Robin's mind to become more awake and aware. His left cheek hurt, being slapped by the Joker normally did that. Robin groaned in pain as he surveyed his surroundings, taking in every minute detail as Batman had taught him. The room he was in looked exactly like a cheap Hollywood producer's idea of what a mad scientist's laboratory looked like. Bubbling beakers dotted the room. Odd gizmos and gadgets of indeterminate function filled every available space. Lights and buttons flashed and beeped with little rhyme or reason. Robin himself was tied down to an operating table. For a moment he thought that he was on the set of a Frankenstein remake.

The old style camera in the corner of the room and its cameraman, or rather, camerawoman, certainly gave credence to the idea. Harley Quinn was running the film on the old camera (it looked to Robin like it would only record a picture in black and white). The Joker, grinning his usual death head's grin was hovering over him, wearing an old style laboratory coat over his regular purple suit and trousers.

"What are you smiling at clown? When I get out of this you won't be able to smile after I've knocked out your teeth." Robin declared.

The Joker to his credit gave an incredibly good impression of a parent upset by their son's verbal abuse.

"Is that anyway to talk to your dear father son?" The Joker asked.

Robin raised an eyebrow in disbelief. The Joker was acting weirder than usual. What was with the mad doctor routine? And why did he keep calling Robin son?

The Joker shook his head in mock sorrow. "Kids these days," he sighed. "They have no respect for their elders. You break your poor father's heart. And after all that your mother and I do to try and provide a decent home for you." The Joker's tone of voice may have sounded disheartened, but the smile never left his face for a moment. But the worst thing about the Joker's appearance that put Robin on his guard was the sharp look in the Joker's eyes. It was a dark look, a look that said the Joker wasn't going to be pulling his punches this time around.

Robin was worried. Something seriously wrong was about to happen. But in the superhero business showing any form of fear in front of your enemies was a death sentence. And so Robin did as most superheroes did when they were in peril. He talked back.

"You must be more off of your meds than usual if you think we're related. Personally I don't see any family resemblance between you and me Joker. Maybe Harley lied about it being yours during the pregnancy."

Robin regretted saying that the moment the words left his mouth. The Joker's smile faltered for less than half a second, only to grow larger and more encompassing. His smile seemed to grow so large that Robin half expected the clown's skin to start splitting at the seams. His eyes grew darker and colder, becoming portals into some icy hell. Robin had once heard it said that the eyes were the portals to the soul. If this was true than the Joker had no soul, for in that moment he saw the Joker's bottled up hatred for Batman and his allies being directed squarely at him. The laughter and the smiles and the jokes were merely a cover, a lie to conceal a seething, raw urge to destroy. That was the nature of the Joker's psychosis. At times he realized his hatred for what it was, but at other times he sincerely thought that this was how friends actually behaved towards one another. Such was his level of disconnect from humanity that, while he often called others his friends, he really had no idea what actual fondness was. Such unpredictability was what made him dangerous, and Robin realized that, in this time and in this place things would be different from all of the other times that a member of the Batfamily had been held hostage.

That look lasted less than half a second, and then it vanished.

"My, my." The Joker whispered. "It's going to take a lot of work to set him straight Harley. Are you up to the task?"

"I'm ready for anything Mr. J." she responded from behind the camera.

"Good, make sure you get a close up of the boy when it happens. And remember to catch my good side dear."

The Joker began rummaging through something or other, tossing aside tools and pieces of machinery.

"You know son, your mother had always wanted to settle down and start a life with your dear old dad. But we never could find the time to start a family properly. We were both such career oriented people, so focused on our jobs. But recently I've come to something of an epiphany. Neither of us is getting any younger. Sooner or later I'm going to wake up one morning and find some grey hair amongst this green." He paused a moment from his rummaging to run his hand through his emerald colored hair.

"And so we both decided that there was no time better than the present. Your mother though didn't exactly want to experience all of the joys of childbearing, even though she desperately wanted a family of her own. So we both decided to adopt. Obviously the legal system wouldn't allow us to do so through official channels. But then we realized that our oldest friend always had a few spare kids lying about in the woodwork, and we thought we'd borrow one. Aha, here it is."

Robin's dread had only been growing during the Joker's speech. The Joker instinctively knew this. He knew where the object (whatever it was) was. True to his craft, the Joker was intentionally drawing the situation out for dramatic effect.

It was working all too well.

The Joker pulled out two large metallic clamps connected to a set of wires. Robin instinctively knew what they were for. They were electrical conductors. Years of training began to vanish as panic set in. He began to struggle against the straps that held him back more violently, desperately trying to free himself from his prison. He looked up to the skylight. "Come on Batman." He thought to himself as the Joker fastened the clamps to the operating table. "Now is the part where you break through the glass and save me." The Joker noticed Robin's line of sight and deduced what he was thinking.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up. He isn't coming. No one is coming for you. They'll never find you. They'll look, but soon they'll give up the search and leave you alone in the dark."

The Joker walked over to a large lever on the side of the room. "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you son."

There was only one retort that Robin could come up with at a time like this.

"Go to Hell."

"We are all in Hell my son." The Joker responded. "In the next few days I'm going to show you the truth of your meaningless little existence. Welcome to the family."

With melodramatic flair the Joker pulled down on the lever and for Timothy Drake the world exploded into agony.

The end had begun.


	4. Expendable

Time and the perception of it is one of the most addling experiences that the human mind can endure. Hours can pass as if they were mere minutes, and mere minutes can pass as if they were hours. Such was the experience that plagued Robin during the first few days. There was no possible way to keep track of time. It was impossible to focus on anything except for the pain and the exhaustion.

After the torture had begun neither the Joker nor Harley spoke a single word. They just stood there silently, watching as their test squirmed and yelped in pain. That was the only sound that could be heard throughout the abandoned halls of Arkham, the endless yelling. Time crawled to a halt. The past was forgotten, the future dark and misty, leaving Robin trapped in one endless present, a nightmare that he could not escape from no matter how hard he tried.

There could be no release. At first Robin had hoped that the level of pain he was experiencing would cause his body to overload, allowing him an opportunity, no matter how short, to slip into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness. But it seemed that even that hope had been denied to him.

The Joker may have been mad, but that madness rarely got in the way of his genius. For the Joker was indeed some kind of genius, an expert at chemical engineering amongst other fields. The Joker had created a cocktail of chemicals and neural agents that would ensure that Robin would remain conscious during his "therapy sessions" as Harley had labeled them. The drugs pumped into Robin's system kept him awake. He couldn't lose consciousness, he couldn't even sleep. Even when the electrical torture ended the nightmare never ceased. The Joker and Harley would take shifts, allowing one to get some rest while the other monitored Robin's vitals and ensured that the drugs were allowed to keep pumping through his bloodstream without overwhelming his systems.

The Joker had thought everything through. The electrical conductors could not be used 24/7 as it would be a strain on the generator. But for the Joker's plan to work Robin could not be allowed even the smallest of breaks. And so the Joker had concocted a poison of his own design, an agent which attacked the nerve endings in the subject's body, activating every pain receptor in the brain and keeping it on so long as the toxin remained in the body.

In short, every time Robin was injected with this toxin he felt as if every inch of his body was on fire.

He tried to hold out hope in those first opening hours and days. Batman would come, he'd save him soon enough. Any second now he would burst down from the roof, pound the snot out of the Joker and rescue him.

But the skylight above revealed the cold truth. Day turned to night above his head and night turned to day. The cycle repeated itself over and over and over again. Robin couldn't keep track. He had gone days without sleep, days without food or water. He was delirious with pain.

Where was Batman?

The clowns hadn't asked any questions. They hadn't interrogated him or tried to figure out who he was. They just kept shocking him and injecting him, the sneering grins on their faces never wavering for a second.

An eternity had passed. Surely years had gone by. Surely Robin would die of agony. How much could one person take?

Then the shocks stopped and the serums weren't injected.

His body was sore, his muscles spasmed as his head pounded. His eyesight was blurred and his throat felt as though it were on fire.

For the first time since it had begun the Joker spoke.

"I wonder where our dear dark knight is. Surely he hasn't forgotten you." Robin tried to tune him out. The Joker was vain and liked to talk. But he couldn't block him out.

"After all it has been five days and I haven't seen either cape or cowl. Maybe he has forgotten you." Robin tried to speak up at that. Batman cared about him. He was like a son to Robin and Batman was like a father to him. They had always watched each others back. Robin shook his head in denial of the Joker's statement.

"What? You don't think he's given up on you? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Please. Grow up bird brain. This is the real world. Do you really think that Batman honestly cares about your well being? He doesn't. I may not know the full details of your little Bat family, but I've been on the outside watching in for some time now, and I can safely say that old Batsy doesn't care at all about anyone but himself. Tell me, do you remember the first boy blunder? I'm sure the two of you met. Him and the Bat were a lot closer than you ever were. They were quite the team. They traded one liners, strategized and generally kept each other informed. They trusted one another. Or so the first Robin liked to believe.

I saw it clear as day, the frustration, the resentment, the mounting contempt. Batman needed a lackey to aid him in his little crusade, but that was all the first Robin ever was to him, a minion, a stooge, an errand boy taking orders from a crazy kook in a bat costume. I saw that Batman always demanded everything of his kids. He expected the world of them. He demanded their total obedience, their complete commitment to the cause. He demanded that they put themselves in harm's way for his crusade. He demanded that they sacrifice their lives to this hopeless war on crime that he seemed so obsessed with.

But it was never good enough for the old man. The first bird boy could never satisfy his endless demands. I could see that. Inevitably Robin quit and left Batman behind. You probably know this better than I do, so I'll ask you. Did Batman ever try to patch things up with old what's his face?"

Robin knew that he hadn't. Bruce and Dick had never truly reconciled after their falling out. Robin didn't say anything, but for the Joker the look on his face was more than enough.

"I thought not." The Joker said with satisfaction. He leaned in closer and forced Robin, who had been trying to look away, to look him in the eye.

"Don't you understand Robin? You're expendable. You, Nightwing, Batgirl, you are all expendable. You are soldiers serving a mad general out on his own little jihad. You can be replaced. It has happened in the past. It may have took a few years but soon enough Batman found someone new to put on the Robin suit. It wouldn't surprise me if Batman was having some new protégé measured for their new costume right now."

"I…I…_chose_…to put this…mask on." Robin whispered haltingly, his hoarse throat allowing him only to speak those words like a croaking frog. He was trying to gather his thoughts, trying to think of a way out of this, trying to think of a way to refute the Joker's argument. But his exhausted mind just could not function well. If only I could get some rest. He thought.

The Joker cackled loudly at this announcement, wiping away a nonexistent tear of mirth from his eye before patting Robin on the head in a falsely placating manner. "Sure you did son, sure you did."

The Joker turned around and walked over to a control display. He began to fiddle with a few buttons and levers with an almost bored expression. "I've known Batman since before you were born." He said over his shoulder. I like to think that I know him very well. I know how that Bat thinks. He is a schemer, a manipulator by his nature. He uses the shadows to trick people into doing what he wants. They may think that they are following their own path, but in reality the people in Batman's little world are nothing more than marionettes, serving Batman's purposes."

"He wants to help people." Robin responded, his voice perhaps a little stronger now.

"He doesn't care about you or anyone else for that matter. All he cares about is his own pain. Maybe that is why he puts on that outfit. Maybe beating up criminals makes him feel better about himself and the life he leads. Perhaps having you and Batgirl there helps him cope a little, but in the end it has always been about him. Nothing else matters."

Batman had always been rather cold and distant, this was true. But Robin tried to use reason. He had his reasons to be cold and distant.

A small voice whispered in the back of his mind. "But why couldn't he just get over it? You got over your father's death Tim. Why can't he just let go like the rest of us? Didn't Dick basically say the same thing as the Joker had when we first met? Didn't Nightwing claim that Batman was manipulative and selfish? Wouldn't Nightwing of all people know?"

Robin didn't have an answer. A minute passed in silence. He had no real answer to give.

The Joker's smile grew wider.

"We'll talk again later."

As he turned to leave he pulled down on the lever once again, and Robin was once more blinded with pain.


	5. Not So Different After All

**Special inspiration for some of the dialogue in the chapter comes from the Killing Joke and from the Dark Knight. Please Leave a Review!**

* * *

Alone.

That was what he was.

Alone.

Never in his life had he been so completely cut off from the rest of the world. The pain was his only companion, the only thing he had that was always with him; that and a new sensation, a sensation that chilled him to the bone.

Doubt.

Doubt complimented the pain and the creeping exhaustion that came and went, adding to the devastation that was slowly being wrought to Robin's mind. Like one of Poison Ivy's strangling weeds doubt slowly but persistently wrapped itself around Robin's mind and squeezed, crushing the life from his sanity. The Joker had planted the seeds when he had claimed that Robin was an expendable minion in Batman's war on crime, easily ignored and forgotten in comparison to the Dark Knight's never ending campaign.

That was the thing about The Joker. He loved to toy with his opponents. He would only crush them outright if circumstances demanded that he absolutely had to, but if he had the time and the patience to do so he preferred the slow, more personal approach. Slowly taking someone apart piece by piece, showing them his twisted view of life, the universe, and everything. All he needed to do to begin the process was to say a few well-placed words. Nothing long winded, nothing magnanimous. Just a few well-placed words.

It was beginning to work.

The Joker returned to the "laboratory" as he had so quaintly named the torture chamber. Leaning against a bank of computers the Joker began to whistle a tune, a tune that a small part of Robin's mind recognized to be the Looney Tunes theme song. The disconnect was surreal to say the least. Here was Robin, writhing in agony as the electrical shocks fried his nervous system, and the Joker was whistling a merry tune while tapping his fingers on the electrical control lever, as if he were casually pondering to himself whether or not to shut the switch off.

Inevitably The Joker did indeed turn the switch off. The relief was instantaneous, but Robin dreaded whatever was to come next. The Joker regarded him for a while, watching as Robin began once more to struggle against the restraints.

"Why do you keep struggling?" The Joker asked. He moved closer to the operating table and tapped on the restraint holding Robin's left arm. "Those straps were designed to restrain some of the strongest kooks in Arkham short of Bane, and no offense kid, but you aren't exactly the most impressive nutcase to be held here."

"I'm not crazy." Robin panted. His lungs felt as though they were on fire, as if he had run a twenty mile marathon. And yet he felt compelled to try and refute The Joker when he spoke. That was his first mistake. Rule #1 with the Joker was simple; if he starts to talk you block him out. The Joker's greatest weapon was his voice. He was a master at getting under his opponents skin and getting on their nerves, manipulating and unsettling even the hardest of people. By actually engaging in a conversation with him in circumstances like these Robin was practically handing the Joker a key into Robin's mind. But the serums and the shocks, combined with sheer exhaustion had worn the Boy Wonder down, causing certain aspects of his training to be forgotten.

"Everyone in the world is crazy." The Joker easily responded. "Some people are just better at hiding it." He began to circle around the table, hands clasped behind his back, that stupid smile still plastered to his face. How Robin wanted to smack that grin off of his face.

"Yes, everyone in the world is crazy…" The Joker repeated, this time slower and more deliberate. "…but some people are just a little better at hiding it. They pretend to be polite and nice to one another, creating this lie that we call society. Those disgusting twits who call themselves normal, you know the type I'm sure. The annoyingly honest, sickeningly average fool who works a 9 to 5 job for a meager paycheck so that he can support his sweetheart back home. How pathetic. Guys like him you see are not like us. They delude themselves into believing that people like us, you and me and Batman that is, are anomalies. That we are a minority of troublemakers, and that mankind is fundamentally good. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

The Joker doubled over at this point, grasping at his chest as he continued to cackle on for a good five minutes. Evidently he found this last idea, the idea concerning human nature, to be highly amusing.

"But you and I know better. You and I have both seen humanity unleashed to its darkest potential. On the streets of Gotham and in the halls of power we have seen what humanity becomes when left to the shadows. When the chips are down and they are desperate enough, these "_civilized_" men and women would eat each other to survive. Left on their own without society's rules and social pressures to conform the average person would turn out just like me."

He stared at Robin intensely, grabbing Robin by the shoulders and shaking the stupor from his eyes.

"Don't you see? _That's the joke_. Our society is all just one demented gag, a lie meant to keep the reality of humanity subjugated. We are animals Robin, animals that evolved in the darkest wilds due to our savagery and our willingness to do whatever is necessary to survive. Society imposes these restraints on us because the weak were scared by all of the pointless brutality that life had to offer. People got scared, don't you see? Every person who has ever lived has looked into the abyss that was themselves, and what they saw scared the living daylights out of them."

The Joker shook his head and let go of Robin's shoulders, chuckling at the perceived folly that was humanity.

"The truth hurts Robin my boy, it hurts more than any torture imaginable. Physical injuries heal with time, but there are some things, some truths that, once learned, can never be unlearned. On mankind's part it wasn't for a lack of trying. Every living person has seen or heard the truth in one form or another during the span of their inconsequential lives, but most chose to ignore it, choosing instead to believe and act out the lie. It's more comfortable and reassuring to them that way. They constructed in their minds these imaginary ideas like justice and purpose. They are really quaint little ideas, but they are illusions created in order to inflate self-worth and give people a feeling that their lives actually matter."

"Life does matter. The world doesn't work the way you say it does." Robin interrupted. The Joker, displeased with the interruption reached out and pulled down on the lever. For five minutes the electrical current surged through Robin's body. Having assured that Robin would not interrupt him again the Joker continued.

"Tell me Robin, do you have any idea how many times we came close to World War III due to a flock of geese being misinterpreted as Soviet missiles showing up on a computer screen? Do you even know what really triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph polls Germany owed its War Department creditors. _Telegraph Polls!_ Don't you get it? Don't you understand? If there was any actual justice or purpose in the world most conflicts would never have happened and all of the guilty people would have been punished. Twelve million people were murdered by the Nazi's in the concentration camps, and nearly twenty million were killed when old Joe Stalin was around and kicking. They were men, women, and children from all walks of life being worked to death, and for what? The average Joe on the street would say because the Nazi's hated the Jews, but why did they hate the Jews? Why does anyone hate anyone? There is no reason. Any excuses that college professors or historians come up with are nothing more than flimsy justifications used to distract from the real, horrifying truth. Hate needs no reason. Hate has no inherent purpose. They did what they did because they could and because they wanted to! These terrible events have no natural rhyme or reason to them that justify their existence. They just happen."

The Joker's eyes seemed to glow as they stared at Robin's mask. "There is no inherent purpose in this universe. There is no cosmic plan, no higher reason save for that which we impose upon ourselves. Now if Batman were here he would say that Justice gives its own purpose. But there is no justice. Justice, like all of the laws that make up modern society, is a sham. Criminals walk the streets and avoid jail all the time. "Innocent" people get killed and abused all the time. If there was any real justice in this world the guilty would never get away with their crimes and the innocent would always triumph. But that isn't how it works. The good die young, so they say."

The Joker pointed at Robin, wearing an earnest expression. "So I ask again, why do you struggle? There is no point to all of this suffering in this nightmare we call life, there is only us and what we make of it."

And then the Joker said something that hurt Robin more than any torture.

"You and I are very similar to one another." That, above all else, made Robin furious.

"We are NOTHING alike!" He bellowed.

With a practiced right hook the Joker punched Robin square in the face, breaking cartilage and causing Robin to taste crimson blood as it began to fill his mouth.

"As Two Face would say we are two sides of the same coin." The Joker said, shaking his right hand in order to ease the discomfort punching someone caused.

"I may not know who you are beneath the mask boy but I know, based on the way you walk and talk that something happened to you. I wonder what happened. Did daddy get killed by the mob? Did your brother get carved up by some mugger? Something like that I bet. Something like that."

The Joker took a few steps back, his eyes beginning to glaze over, seeing something that Robin could not see. His voice became quieter, almost confused, his face contorted in concentration as if he was trying to solve a rather difficult riddle.

"Something like that happened to _me…_" He stood their silently, just staring into space, as if he were trying to remember something that had long been forgotten.

"I…I don't quite remember what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way." He stared down at his right hand. "Sometimes another." He stared now at his left hand.

For a moment there was silence as The Joker contemplated something. And then, as quickly as it had left the manic smile returned. "If I'm going to have a past I prefer it to be multiple choice HA HA HA!"

Gone as quick as it had come, the introspection was replaced by the old psychotic gleam that The Joker was most well known for.

"My point is that, like you something happened to me that caused me to go out into the world and make my mark. Like you I realized that the justice system and society itself, as symbolized by Gotham City was broken beyond all repair and that the law was a joke, incapable of deterring the more bizarre personalities who call this city home. Like you I found a particular joy in inflicting pain and misery upon those who opposed me, and like you I found myself in the company of like minded companions. The fact that we defy social conventions by wearing such different outfits is another comparison. The only difference between you and I is this; I accept the world for what it is. I go with the flow, realizing and appreciating the nature of life as it is on this planet. But you won't admit it. You have to pretend that life makes sense. You try your hardest to etch out some meaning in this world, to divine some sort of purpose or sense of accomplishment."

The Joker spat on the ground in contempt.

"God you all make me sick! Why can't you see the funny side? Do you really think that you have made a difference? Do you honestly believe that you can really _change _ things? You can't. You can't wipe out crime. You can't stamp out corruption. You can't change human nature. All that you have managed to accomplish is applying a bandage to a wound that requires major surgery. You can't hold back the tide. You can't fix this, you can't fix it because it was never broken in the first place. All that you consider to be wrong and evil is perfectly natural. This is the way it was meant to be."

The Joker turned to leave, pulling down on the lever as left.

The pain returned as worse as it had ever been, but above his own screams Robin heard The Joker say something as he left.

"You may think me a monster, but I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of everyone else."


	6. Get Down With The Sickness

The pain knew no limits. It became his entire world, his past, his present, and his future. The pain washed over him like waves crashing upon the shoreline, thrashing his nervous system. He was alone with not a single sympathetic soul to hear his screams. He had tried to be block it out and be brave as Bruce had taught him, but his life as the ward of the Dark Knight seemed as though it had been an eternity ago. The endless waking nightmare that was this ordeal brought more than mere pain.

It brought despair.

"Where was Batman?" That was the question that pounded through his skull the most. In between the thoughts of "God please just kill me" and "Joker I'll slaughter you" that were his few cognizant thoughts there was that one, persistent question. "Where was Batman?"

The Joker's words echoed through his mind on occasion. _"He doesn't care. He never has. You're expendable."_

Round and round in his head these words echoed. He could not banish these ruminations. Because of the pain it was impossible for him to think of anything else. They were the only thoughts that he could think of.

Tim almost preferred the pain. Almost.

In summation the Joker's plan was a recipe for disaster, as were most of his plans.

The human mind is perhaps one of the most intricate devices on the planet, cable of storing, observing, and decoding vast quantities of data. Above and beyond the prowess of even the most advanced supercomputer, the human mind was blessed with the abilities of comprehensive thought and self-awareness. To compare the human mind, or the mind of any sentient creature that populated the known universe with a machine would be a fool's errand, as the mind was so much more complex than that. And yet the comparison still stands, for, like any machine, there is only so much wear and tear, so much blunt trauma that the mind can take before falling apart completely.

That was the fatal flaw of the human mind. It was perhaps one of the most complex apparatuses in the world, and yet it was so easily shattered.

The first step was deprivation of rest, an easily attainable goal for someone determined to make it happen. The drugs and the shocks kept the subject's body in a consistent state of stress, allowing the adrenaline to keep flowing and the cortex to remain active. The nervous system was kept in permanent activity just enough to keep him conscious, but not so much that he could become immune to the pain or block it out.

Combined with repeated statements on the hopelessness of his situation and, of course, the endless agony that the serums and the shocks provided, it was only a matter of time before something snapped.

And snap it did.

Once again the rather inaccurate metaphor of the machine is brought into being. But on that night the comparison could be made not only to the mind, but to the body as well, for the body is much like a machine. Both require fuel, both require care, and both require constant maintenance, and like any machine there is only so much that the human body can stand before malfunctioning. Robin recognized this. And so his plan, born of desperation was hatched

It was his heart that was the key to the entire plan. The stress that the shocks had put it under had been almost too much for it to handle. The heart, like other parts of the nervous system requires electrical impulses of a certain kind in order to keep pumping in a proper manner. The shocks inflicted upon Robin's body threatened to disrupt this natural rhythm. Robin realized this. The memory came to him like a bolt of lightning. It was simple biology. What happened if the electrical impulses to the heart were disrupted?

Cardiac arrest quickly followed of course.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity something resembling hope entered into Robin's mind as a plan fell into place.

Without warning Robin slumped forward, his body limp. Despite the pain he tried hard not to move. He had long since screamed himself hoarse, so his screams had become greatly muffled and were thus easier to restrain. Harley, who had been on duty observing him while the Joker was out jumped from her seat and ran to the operating table upon which Robin had spent the last two weeks. Harley may have only achieved her doctorate in psychology, but years spent on the run with the Joker at her side had necessitated that she expand her knowledge into biology and medicine. After all, no hospital would treat them without calling the cops, and a life as the henchwoman of one of history's greatest psychopaths was hazardous to one's health to say the least.

And so without a moment's hesitation she recognized the signs. Heart attack or cardiac arrest probably, she reasoned. The kid couldn't be allowed to die now, not when her beloved sweetheart's greatest plan depended on him living.

And so, without even thinking she shut down the electrical current and undid the straps tying Robin to the table. She couldn't perform CPR with him on the table, as the table was placed into the vertical position and, in her panic, she forgot that there was a lever that could have lowered the table into the horizontal position. As soon as his left arm was let loose she went over to undo his right arm. And then, as she moved to unfasten the leg restraints she heard something.

She heard a harsh, guttural whisper that terrified her.

"_Thanks_."

Before she could even react Harley Quinn felt Robin's left hook impact into her cheek. It was a quick and desperate jab, enough to disorientate anyone for but the briefest of moments. In the time it took Harley to recover Robin undid the leg straps and lunged for Harley. He had not stood in two weeks. His vision was blurry. He could just barely think, just barely understand his surroundings.

The only thing that was clear to him was a small, feral voice in the back of his head shrieking the word ATTACK into his ear. And attack he did. The adrenaline coursing through his veins gave him a temporary reserve of strength, and so he lunged for the staggering form of Quinn.

Leaping forward he grabbed her, sending a concentrated kick to her solar plexus. Half from shock, half from pain, Quinn crumpled to the floor.

Robin was on her in a heartbeat. Like a rabid lion tearing into a wounded to gazelle he pinned her. And then the blows came. She was nothing more than a red and black blur in his eyes. And yet he knew that she had to pay. She had helped to hurt him, and now he would respond in kind. She deserved this. He deserved this. They all deserved this. And so he punched her. Again and again and again he punched her.

Left hand, right hand, each had its turn impacting upon flesh and bone. With each blow Robin's vision grew clearer, but with each punch he did not see Quinn.

CRACK!

There before him Robin saw the form of his deadbeat father Steven Drake.

CRACK!

And now there was Nightwing.

CRACK!

The Joker.

CRACK!

Batgirl.

CRACK!

Batman.

CRACK!

Batman again. The tears were welling in his eyes. Of all the people in the world who could have kept this from happening it could have been him. People always said that Batman could do anything, that out of every superhero in the world he was by far the greatest. If he was the World's Greatest Detective as many had claimed, then why hadn't he deduced where his ward was?

Where was the Goddamn Batman when he was needed the most?

The Joker's words echoed through his mind once more. _You're expendable. He only cares about himself. He doesn't care about you._

"Well, well what have we here?"

Robin looked up, his vision clearer now than it had been. There, in the door way stood the Joker. In his hand he held a simple 9mm pistol, pointed lazily at Robin.

"I can't leave for thirty minutes just to get milk without having to worry that you'll burn the house down. Ah well, this is all probably just a desperate cry for help."

Robin looked away from Joker at the body lying before him. Quinn had resumed her natural form in Robin's addled mind. She was conscious, and she was groaning in pain. Weeks of torture made Robin's mind a fog. Natural fight or flight instinct took over that which mental restraints and discipline had long held in check. Desperation drove what happened next.

Grabbing Quinn by the shirt, Robin lifted her into a sitting position, put his right hand on the top of her head, and placed his left hand on her lower jaw.

"Let me go. NOW!" Robin tried to sound intimidating, but his parched throat proved to be an impediment. He sounded like a sick frog.

Never once did the Joker's death's head grin leave that face of his. In fact, the ruby red lips appeared to stretch even further apart, his yellowing teeth parting. It was a smile that would have given the Cheshire cat a run for its money.

"Or what?" He asked softly.

"I'll snap her neck." Robin responded.

"Really?" The Joker asked, sounding for all the world like a little kid who had just watched his grandpa perform a really good magic trick, the excitement palpable in his voice.

"Yes. Now let me go!"

"This is turning out even better than I had hoped." The Joker said. He placed the gun in his pocket and planted himself firmly in the doorway. "Go on Junior, make me proud."

For a split moment Robin hesitated. And then he tightened his grip on Harley's head. Could he do this, could he really do it? He hesitated again. He loosened his grip just slightly.

_Yes. _He could, and nothing could stop him come hell or high water.

Or a sharp strike to the face. Quinn, sensing that Robin was going to go through with his threat swung her head backwards as Robin paused. The back of her head connected with the front of his. Blood spurted from his nose. He could taste the coppery sensation as blood pooled in his mouth. Quinn leapt to her feet and ran to the Joker's side as Robin's grip slackened.

His last hope was gone. There was no way out. He had blown his one shot. And then he heard it, a slow rhythmic clapping. The Joker was applauding.

"Bravo bird boy, you passed the biggest test of all. Welcome to my world."

"Your world?" Robin asked, terror filling his numb body at the realization of what he had almost done.

"Yes, my world. For the first time in your futile crime fighting career you let go of all inhibition. It doesn't matter that you didn't get the chance to go through with it. You tried. You were going to do it. The only snarl in an otherwise flawless plan was that your reflexes were a little slow. The only difference between you and me Robin was that you and all the other costumed do-gooders had one rule. You just threw that rule away. What would Batsy say if he had happened upon us during that little scene?"

Robin knew what would happen. Batman would have been furious. His rule was absolute and inflexible. Nothing warranted the taking of another life in his mind, not even the life of someone as foul as the Joker. It had always been his way or the highway when it came to that rule, or any of Batman's rules for that matter. Robin had never been able to fully satisfy the old man's stringent requirements. He had never lived up to Dick's reputation as Robin in Batman's eyes. Batman had never said anything, but Robin had always suspected it to be true. He was nothing. He was the son of a no name criminal. Who had he been kidding? He had failed. He had tried to do the impossible, to live up to the requirements of the Dark Knight, and like all the people that had come before him he had been found wanting.

He had trained, he had sacrificed, he had given everything, and it had all been for nothing. He had lost everything. No one was coming for him.

He had been forsaken.

"You see now don't you?" The Joker asked.

"Yes." Robin replied. "But, but I can't go back. I WON'T GO BACK! I'd rather die than feel pain like that again. Please don't put me back on that table. Please."

"You don't have to go back." The Joker smoothly responded.

"W-what?" Robin asked, timidly, his entire form shaking as the adrenaline left his system and exhaustion set in."

"You know what I need from you Son. We are a family after all. And families don't keep secrets from each other."

Robin knew what he meant. Sanity dangled by a thread on the precipice of oblivion. He stared down into the gaping madness of bloody hell, and where once he would have shown defiance there was now only acceptance.

This was the way the world was. There was no fighting it.

He could only embrace it.

Without hesitation his shaking hand reached up to his face and removed the mask covering his eyes.

For what seemed like an eternity the Clown Prince of Crime and his henchwench stared at the person before them. Their mouths stood agape, the smile wiped from the Joker's face as the connections were made. They both recognized this kid, as unlikely as that was. They had seen and heard of him before. He was always in the background on the TV or in the papers, always in the company of Gotham's greatest son, this boy's guardian, and, they both realized, the man whose cowled form had struck fear in the hearts of criminals the world over. Everything made sense now.

"It can't be…" Harley said.

"_he! he! he! he! he!"_ Tears streamed down the unmasked face of Timothy Drake as he chuckled at the pointlessness of it all. Insanity beckoned, offering him sweet release from the troubles of reality. He accepted the madness gladly, and all the while he mourned what had once been.

That was the nature of madness, to be glad and to be miserable all at once. His descent was complete.

The Joker looked upon his new son and felt the world turn beneath his feet. Everything had fallen into place. He saw now the things that had so long been hidden from him. This revelation would certainly spice up the game a great deal. There was only one way for him to respond to this new truth. There was only one thing for him to express.

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!


	7. The Gift That Keeps On Giving

This, all of this, it feels like the presents found under the tree on Christmas day. The paper is shiny and new, wrapped up with a fancy ribbon that feels like silk as it runs through your fingers. But it is that which is underneath that enthralls you. What is it? Is it that new wristwatch you always wanted? A laptop? Some cyanide? There lies the thrill of it, the enigma of not knowing.

The mystery slithers into your brain and wraps itself around your mind until all that you can think of is what is inside the box. You have to know, you need to know. It burns its mark upon your consciousness. As the allotted time comes you find yourself obsessed. Everything you say, everything you know, everything you do becomes driven by that yearning desire to know what it is, to peel back the wrapping paper, to open the box and see what is inside.

And then curiosity gets the best of us. Deep in the night we sneak from our beds, enacting that master plan to catch a sneak peak. Every child has likely concocted such a plan, to creep past their parent's room, prowl down the stairs into the living room where the prize ultimately lies. And then comes the eleventh hour, the moment where we hesitate upon the precipice, gazing up at the tree and down at the gifts underneath, and for but a moment we hold back. We stand there, gazing down, and we wonder, we wonder if we really want to know.

Do we want to know? It is a question that raged in our minds, in my mind, every time. Some waver and beat a hasty retreat to their room while others press on, having recognized that they have crossed the line that indicates the point of no return.

Just as I have.

We kneel beneath the tree and reach out for that gift, that hidden secret that has driven us mad with yearning for the reality that eludes us. And some of us wonder, is this how Adam and Eve felt, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, this trepidation that threatens to hold us back, and this temptation that drives us forward.

And then we open the package and realize we got socks for Christmas.

What a ripoff.

Such is the feeling I have been going through over the last few hours. Harley is off who knows where. She knows I want to be alone. The screams that once filled the Asylum have fallen silent once again.

Phase One is complete. Now Phase Two can commence in earnest.

It is all rather anticlimactic. I would have preferred it if the truth had come out another way, but it seems that Batsy has forced my hand. He could have let me take off his cowl at any time during any one of our games, but the rodent simply wouldn't play by my rules. He forced my hand. If he wouldn't reveal who he was, someone else would have to.

It was obvious from the moment that Robin took off his mask who he was. Tim Drake, a completely forgettable kid if it wasn't for the person he was connected to.

Bruce Wayne, Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and scourge of the underworld it would seem.

Actually it is all rather painfully obvious in hindsight. Reclusive billionaire, owner of a massive corporation that specializes in advanced technology, amongst other things. I had always wondered where he got those wonderful toys of his. Now I know.

It seems torture is a very useful tool when it comes to persuading one to speak. After he broke down the dear boy told me everything. And by everything, I do mean _everything_.

But the reason, the catalyst that brought about the rise of the Dark Knight seems so, so, underwhelming to me. I mean, his Mom and Dad get shot and he decides to deal with it by taking out his rage on Gotham's criminals? Is that the best he could come up with? As far as motivations go I suppose it isn't terrible, but it is rather cliche, and for someone like Batman the cliche is not exactly the most becoming of tropes.

I am rather disappointed. I was expecting something more. I was expecting someone who had been tortured to the brink of insanity. I was expecting a hard and brutal man beneath the cowl.

Instead I get a little boy in a costume who is still crying for his parents. Instead I get Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham City.

What right does he have to claim that he is tortured or misunderstood. The man's rich for crying out loud. Money can buy happiness after all. Get over it.

I mean, it's all a front? Beneath the frown and the gadgets there is just an overgrown mama's boy? Is that who I have been fighting? Is that the man who has beaten...

No, no, no! Don't think about that. It is in the past, it doesn't matter, not anymore. I'll get him this time. Everything that occurred in the past is irrelevant. I've never let past setbacks keep the smile off of my face. I just keep on going.

Another difference between him and I. He is stuck in his past, reliving it and rethinking it over and over while I never give the past a second thought. He is order and I am chaos. He is dark and I am light. He is broken, and I am not.

This is the best way to break through that stern facade. He is even more vulnerable than I had suspected. He isn't as indestructible as everyone would believe. The things Drake has told me! It is all falling into place.

I had never given Bruce Wayne much thought. He was always in the background of Gotham City, much like Batman. Which makes sense since they are one and the same. You always heard about the two of them. You would see pictures of the two of them and see them on TV occassionally, but to the average person you never saw them in the flesh. It all makes sense now. I never really liked it when things made sense.

The funny thing is that the two, Batman and Bruce Wayne are more alike than most people would think, which is odd. You would think that a secret identity and a hero's identity would be polar opposites in order to attract attention, but recently the two have become more and more similar for Batman.

Looking back over the years, just through casual observation, a rather interesting pattern emerges. Back in the old days when the game was new Batman was not quite as brooding as he is today. He was much more talkative in those days, trading one liners with the first boy blunder while giving out insults to his opponents. Rumor has it he would even crack a smirk every once in a while! Imagine that. Of course he never smiled in front of me, but he was definitely much more pleasant. The same could be said for Wayne. He was always laughing, smiling, partying, and dating pretty girls. It's obvious now that it was all a front meant to cover up the truth, but deep down there was probably a small part of him that partially enjoyed those parties and those girls.

And yet as the years passed one after another Gotham's greatest son began to lose his youthful vigor. The man who had gained a reputation as a playboy was seen less and less in public. He dated fewer women, had more seemingly serious relationships, went to fewer events and generally pulled away from society. The few times he was seen in public he seemed worn down and tired. Now that I think of it he never smiled in those later pictures. His voice became more gravelly and harsher in tone.

He seemed bitter.

Most merely assumed that he had finally grown up and become a responsible businessman. But this change in attitude coincided with the changes that came over Batman. As the 90's faded away into the early 2000's Batman became more and more vicious. He spoke less, he never smiled, and the one liner's he would share with his proteges practically ceased to exist.

Perhaps he finally realized that you can't stop crime. You can't change human nature by punching a few crooks. The world was made rotten, there is nothing that can be fixed. Maybe he finally realized this. The question though is why does he continue to struggle against the inevitable. It is all so pointless.

Perhaps he is stubborn.

Harley claims that this is perfectly natural. Apparently old Bruce never got adequate therapy to deal with the problem, and by the time he decided to don the cape any therapy would have been useless. He isn't all there.

Just like me.

We both saw society's black underbelly, both saw humanity at it's absolute worst. I just accepted it. He didn't. And so as the years passed Batman was made to experience horrors most people could only dream of. He dealt with psychopaths and their victims on a nightly basis. He dealt with the fear of millions, the pain of thousands, and the never ending stress. No regular human being could deal with such mental trauma and hope to retain anything resembling sanity.

And so, one step at a time, Batman cut off everything that made him human, and it bled into his civilian life. He just couldn't stand the pretension and the lies that made up human society.

He withdrew himself from the world, cutting ties with friends, lovers, and those who would call him family. Why?

Because he couldn't bare the pain of loss. He knew that if he kept losing those who were close to him like his parents he would lose his mind. And so he pushed everyone in his life away and kept them at a distance so he wouldn't become as attached to them as he was to his parents.

He cut himself off from humanity, having seen and felt the horrors of the world, wanting never again to feel the pain that he was experiencing. He thought that this would make him strong, but it has made him weak.

He fears losing those close to him. I wonder, how quickly will he shatter upon learning that it is one of his loved ones who shall end him?

I looked from my latest science project to Drake's pale and troubled face.

Drake was resting peacefully, or as close to peaceful as you could get in his situation. He had been sedated and restrained. Looking at him now he looked like a shorter doppelganger of myself. His face was chalk white and his hair was dark green. Unfortunately there wasn't a vat of chemicals nearby to toss him into so we had to settle for make up and hair dye, but the important component has already been installed.

He is stark raving mad.

There is only so much one man can take. For years I and my colleagues have tried to drive Batman batty. We've made him bleed, made him hurt, made him suffer, and made others suffer while he watched on. Will this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? We'll see.

But the final indignity to the legacy of the Caped Crusader won't be when Timmy here shoots his father figure, no. My revenge must be much deeper than the meticulous revelation of Tim Drake's decline into insanity and the death of Batman.

The final indignity shall be much, much more personal. For years now I have realized that soon this green hair will start to turn grey. It is only a matter of time. I can feel it in my bones. I'm slowing down. As much as I would like to deny it I am not immortal. Not yet. But where there is a will there is a way.

I hadn't given it much thought in the beginning, but with the rise of the superheroes and all the mad scientist technology lying around the idea of living forever suddenly didn't seem quite so farfetched. Why should I someday die, leaving future generations denied my clever brand of comedy? And so, while Batman was off saving the world with the Justice League I found myself traveling the globe in secret, searching for some means by which I could cheat death forever.

The Lazarus pits were one potential means, but Ra's al Ghul didn't seem very keen on sharing. And so I turned to a more technological angle. In time I came across Project Cadmus, a government sponsored organization dedicated to ensuring that America would stand a chance if anyone in the League suddenly went nuts and decided it would be fun to take over the world. It was during a raid on one of Cadmus's warehouses that I came across my current science project: a microchip.

Not just any microchip mind you. This one was reversed engineered from captured alien technology that the Feds had acquired from countless failed alien invasions. This chip made it possible for a person to make a digital copy of their entire personality and all of their memories and download it onto a small, seemingly unnoticeable computer chip. A back up copy of an entire person as it were. But that wasn't all. The chip, when implanted upon someone's neck, could, given the proper circumstances download the digital personality into the brain of the subject, overriding that person's mind and allowing the digital consciousness to take control.

There it was, the key to my immortality lying right on the back of Bird Boy's neck. I'd have Batman broken and dead, and best of all it would be his adopted son who would destroy his father's legacy. And he would be just the beginning. With Batman dead I'd keep going. Now that I know who these people are it will become all the easier to destroy them. And when this body is old and grey I'll activate the chip.

Every time a body starts to age I'll simply use this technology to transfer my conscience to a new body. It will be a never ending cavalcade of comedy.

Gotham won't know what hit it.

But first things first. All the pieces are in play.

It is time to send Batman his invitation.

The Grand Finale is about to begin.

* * *

**In the next chapter we hear a little from the Dark Knight himself. Needless to say he will not be very happy. Please Leave a Review!**


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